I tell her about Ian—how I’m addicted-obsessed-hooked on him really bad.
“Enjoy him, Sara. Why not? He’s into you; I could tell when I saw you two bump into each other that day in Central Park.”
I sigh. “I’m trying not to put my whole heart into it, you know? Let things move at their own pace.”
Bryn nods. “That’s a good idea. Once his divorce comes through, you’ll feel less concerned about whatever it is you have between you two. Just be careful,” she says. “And post me. I’m here for you.”
“Promise. I’ll see you soon and I’m here for you too,” I say before packing a bag and heading to the Upper East Side, where Ian and I promised to show off our dinner skills. I know I’ll be staying over. And while we innocently play house, I can’t wait to play with the man of the house himself.
Sara
I have a fabulous week shopping for furniture with my Suit. We hit up Restoration Hardware, Room and Board, Safavieh Home. They have the most beautiful lighting fixtures I’ve ever seen. Their chandeliers are gorgeous. The couches are heaven. I lie on one couch so amazing I decide I don’t want to get up. “Yummy, I’ve got your perfect couch.”
He drops down beside me and stretches his arms out, shifting as he frowns and surveys the masterpiece.
“Don’t tell me it isn’t delicious,” I dare.
“What is this?”
“It’s the Cloud! It’s all feathers! Can’t you feel how soft the cushion filling is? And it’s a modular, so you can order as much as you want.” I curl up on the couch and feel as if I’m floating. “It’s my dream couch.”
“Dancer.” He rolls his eyes. “There’s not a thing we have seen that’s not your dream something.”
“Well, it’s a big house! I’m doing all this for free, you know. My taste is spot on.”
Ian’s phone rings, interrupting our flirtation.
He checks the screen. “I have to answer.”
I sigh, trying to act irritated though I’m not. He’s a busy man. He has work to do.
I watch him as he listens to whoever’s talking, his expression grim, his answers short. When he finally ends the call, I ask, “What happened?”
“Camera guy’s sick.”
“What are you filming?”
“A documentary. Want to come?” he asks after a moment.
“I’d love to.”
“I’ll take you. Once we get back on track.”
He turns to the Restoration Hardware designer who’s helping us select things for Ian’s home and asks what colors are in stock for same-week delivery.
“Your girlfriend really loves this couch.”
I open my mouth to explain to the woman that I’m not sure we’re there yet because he has a wife, but Ian simply smiles at me, his eyes dark as he takes me in on the couch. “She does.”
It’s Friday when his camera guy is back in good form, and Ian drives us to the film set.
“Hey, Jake.” He greets a tall, blond guy who he introduces to me as one of his LA directors.
“My director flew in to start filming,” he explains as Jake sets up a new chair by the producer’s chair, which I realize belatedly is for me.
They’re all bending over backward for Ian, blatantly licking his balls and complimenting him, like he’s some sort of big shot.
I narrow my eyes as it starts dawning on me. “Tell me something, Ford. Who are all those execs staying at the Four Seasons?”
“My employees.”
“Aha.” I’m still digesting all of this.
He’s the boss. I look at the emblems of some blockbuster movies on the back of the director and producer’s chairs. “You produced those?” I point at the action-packed thrillers.
“My blockbusters help finance my documentaries.” He gives me an arrogant, proud, lopsided smile that for some reason makes my nipples bead.
Okay. So … you learn something new every day, right? Like the guy you’re crushing on is some hotshot movie/documentary/film mogul. What the… fudge?
“From the top,” Ian announces.
The cameraman moves from side to side as the camera rails swing him up and down and front to back.
As interviews and shots of garbage in its multiple forms appear, I see Ian hanging back, taping with his phone. I walk around the set and twirl and practice my moves for any future auditions. I’ve been doing this for a while before I realize he’s got his camera trained on me.
“Mr. Ford,” I warn him with a glare.
He doesn’t stop filming, just gives me one of his sardonic smiles from behind the phone.
I cover my face. Ian crooks a finger. I drop my hands at my sides with a sigh and walk forward and look at him in the camera eye, licking my lips seductively. He stops filming and lowers his phone, tsks, but smiles as he shakes his head. “Are you hungry?”
“Starved.”
He reaches into a cooler in the back of a crew van and hands me lunch in a paper bag.
I groan. If I thought he’d take me out of here to eat somewhere, I was wrong. It’s going to be a long day.
It’s evening, and I’ve eaten three chicken sandwiches, and watched Ian in action, and practiced all my moves, and learned a lot about garbage. I curl up on the passenger seat of Ian’s Mercedes SUV as we head to his townhome.
He drives with one hand on the wheel, the window partly down, letting in the cool air. After finding a parking spot only two homes away from his brownstone, he helps me out, and I’m sleepy and tired, but I don’t want to go home just yet. I enjoy being with him too much, and I crave his touch like oxygen.
He walks me in, and I almost melt when I see a brand-new couch waiting in the living room. A Cloud.
I smile up at him in surprise, and when he winks, my smile fades as my heart begins to pulse madly with yearning, and I admit, “I had a good time today.”
“I enjoyed you being there.” We head to the couch, his gaze running over me. “I could hardly take my eyes off you.”
“’Cause I’m the only lunatic who starts dancing with no music.”
“I’m the lunatic who can’t get enough of it.” His smile changes to a frown as he rethinks his words. “No. Not a lunatic. I feel saner than I ever have in my life.”
We stare at each other.
“This feels right.”
I nod, our eyes holding. The moment is suddenly too intimate for me to stand. “You mean your couch. Feels right.”
He dips his head slightly, a smile ruffling his lips. We both know we don’t mean the couch.
His expression turns serious, his eyes burning with smoldering intensity as he rubs his thumb across my lower lip.
“I’ve been hungering for this.”
“Me too.” I let my tongue come out, to lick his thumb.
He likes it, smiles. My insides melt under the force of that smile.
I’m not sure this casual dating thing is working for me. I think of him all the time, and not just for this—although this seems to be the only outlet I have for these feelings inside me.
I reach out, craving his touch, and the need to touch him is too much. I urge his shirt up the waistband of his slacks; then I push the fabric up his chest and Ian pulls it over his head with a tug. The movement messes up his hair, and it ends up tousled and gorgeous as he stands before me in nothing but his slacks.
“Here. Give me this,” he says, taking my chin between his thumb and forefinger and tipping my face back to take from my lips what he hungers for. I don’t know what it is he hungers for—my taste or my lips or my lust or the way I respond to him without hesitation. Maybe he hungers to simply drive me wild. But I give him everything because I hunger for all of that from him, too.
The way he tastes me like I’m a perfect morsel. The way he kisses me like he’s burning up with passion and I’m the cause. The way he holds my face so that there’s no escaping his kiss or his passion.
When he tears his mouth free, he’s breathing hard, and I’m chasing my breath in an
d out. I grab his belt and unbuckle him. I trail my fingers up his hard abs and his pecs.
He tips my face back farther, for him to bend down and drop kisses all over me. I offer it with no protest, sighing softly when his kisses start a haphazard path across my chin and cheeks and nose and forehead.
He tugs my sweater dress up my frame. He pulls it over my head and bends to flick open my bra from the front clasp.
He sets a kiss on my nose. Then my chin. Then between my breasts. Before he licks the tip of his tongue in a hot little circle around the tip of one breast. My toes curl when he cups my breast with the heel of his palm and sucks me fully into his mouth. My head falls back and his arm comes around to hold me on my feet. I tremble as he keeps sucking me, and I make a small, mewling sound.
Ian smiles at that. Gathering me to him, he backs us to the couch and takes a seat, bringing me down with him.
I’m breathless and frantic, curling my arms around his neck as I straddle him, pressing my lips to his, my tongue circling around his, pushing against his.
He slows the pace with his tongue, stroking a hand down my back, causing tingles to race down my spine.
I look up at him and into his smoldering dark eyes as I reach to dip my fingers between our bodies, under his slacks. His cock is made for sex and pleasure, and right now nothing can convince me that it wasn’t made for me and only me.
I curl my fingers around him as Ian slides his own between my thighs, under my panties. “How hard do you want it?” He presses his mouth to my own, kissing me lazily between words.
I push my hips up to his touch. “Hard,” I whimper.
He bends and licks one of my nipples, then the other. Then he blows air on them, the yummy bastard. And my whole body clenches and arches up as a bow, my hips thrusting for more of his fingers. “Yummy, please.”
I rock them against his hardness.
He grabs the back of my head and inhales the back of my ear, then kisses a path to my breasts. “You smell good, Dancer.” His eyes twinkle greedily as his tongue snakes out to taste my nipples. I gasp and clench my fingers into his hair.
“Like garbage?” I quip after being all day on set with him.
“No, sweetheart. You smell like you.”
He rolls me over to lay me down on the length of the couch, and I can tell that he’s using his arms to keep from crushing me beneath him. I lock one of my legs around his hips and pull him down lower, wanting his weight on top of me. Wanting all of him over me.
“Take these off.” I tug at his pants.
He stands to remove them, stepping out of his shoes and taking off his boxers along with his slacks.
His skin is so warm as he spreads his body on top of mine that I mewl softly. I run my hands down the muscles on his back, feeling them flex as he adjusts himself above me to continue his assault on my body.
His scent hits me on every breath. He doesn’t seem like he’s in any hurry. He’s torturing me sexually and I don’t know if I want to hit him for it or kiss him for it, so I decide I’ll just fuck him really hard for it.
As soon as he stops licking me between my thighs, he lets my panties come back to cover my wet sex and he comes up and licks his lips, running his tongue across his teeth as if savoring me.
“I can’t get over how responsive you are. How flexible your sweet body is. It drives me crazy to watch you come undone.”
He tips my head back so that our eyes lock. His hand curls around the back of my neck, and then he cradles the back of my head with his thumb as he kisses me.
His other thumb caresses my sex lips. He’s driving me crazy with wanting.
He reaches out and tugs off my panties, easing them down my legs. I’m quivering, helpless, watching as Ian pushes my legs wider apart and thrusts inside.
“Please!” I gasp, curling my legs around him. I clench him hard with my thighs and press my mouth to his jaw as he pulls out. “Please. Please,” I ramble unthinkingly, and Ian drives back in, holding me still by the waist.
“I want this just as badly as you do.” His eyes gleam as his face clenches harshly with desire.
Beautiful and untamed, he moves powerfully above me. We hold gazes as he moves, his hand on my ankle as he keeps my leg open around his hips. He manages to hit me at my exact G-spot. Nobody’s ever fucked me like he does.
I groan and sink my nails into his muscular shoulders, leaving claw marks and not minding that I do. I want to leave a mark. I want him to know that he’s mine now.
He looks at my bouncing breasts, my reddened breasts, groaning low when I stroke my fingers along his muscular ass.
I’m so wet he slides easily in, but I feel completely stretched and out of my mind with need for him every time he fills me to the brim. I undulate my body, clutching him for more.
“Gorgeous. You’re gorgeous, Sara. I fucking love fucking you. I fucking love being with you. In you.” Watching me through openly hot eyes, Ian reaches out and flicks the pad of his thumb across my clit.
I scream as I orgasm.
It takes me like a crashing wave, drowning me.
I don’t breathe the whole time the shudders take me. Ian pins me down by the hips and keeps pumping into me, watching me twist and turn and gasp. Then he reaches that edge, and I watch the flash in his eyes as he climbs over it.
And in that moment, he grabs my face to kiss me. He kisses me hard and passionately, like he wants me to be the one who receives everything that he’s unleashing as he comes.
I curl into him, the aftershocks running all over me. I feel amazing, our bodies loose, sweat coating Ian’s chest and mine.
He throws his head back and sighs contentedly as he stares at the ceiling, his hand coming to stroke the back of my head.
“Hmmm,” I say, smiling against his chest.
I peer up at him and notice he’s got his eyes closed, a half smile tugging at his lips.
“That was nice,” I say.
“Nice doesn’t cover it.” He opens his eyes and strokes his fingers along my jaw. “Let’s get something to eat and get our strengths up so we can do it again.” He pecks my lips, and I groan as if I don’t want exactly that to happen. “Okay, but you cook us something.”
He pats my ass. “Nah, that’s what we’ve got Uber Eats for.”
Sara
Ian, Ian, Ian, my heart seems to beat as I step out of work and into the Brooklyn streets, ready to head back home.
It’s been a whirlwind two weeks, and I can’t get enough of him.
I’m standing outside, debating whether to take the train or grab a cab, when a piece of the New York Times flies by and sticks to my feet. I try to kick it off, but the air is pressing it around my ankle. I grab it, dust off my fingers, and read:
Audition for upcoming Broadway musical…
Suddenly the wind whips the paper from my fingers. I run after it and grab the paper back to me, then reread it and scan for the location. The name of the producer is one of the newer production companies—ALA Inc. And I wonder how big the company is, and what their budget will be.
Does that matter, Sara? It’s a possible part!
What can it hurt? I already have a stable income as Bryn’s PA, but I’m ready to work for what I want. I promised myself after I lost my job as a concierge that I wouldn’t give up this easily. I can’t reasonably expect every audition to get me a gig, but all I need is one. One opportunity to show them what I’ve got, and this could be it.
As I take the stairs underground to the subway station, I’m starting to bring up the Safari browser on my phone and mark down the audition date when my mom calls.
“Momma.”
She’s crying.
“Mom, what’s wrong?”
“I got the papers,” she whispers.
And my heart breaks. I blink back tears, trying to hide them with my hair.
“Oh, Sara,” she says when she hears my sobs.
I can’t respond. My dad doesn’t love my mom anymore. So many times he would kiss
her in front of me. So many times he’d tell me, “I love your mother.” And so what does that mean? That he never loved her? Or that love goes away?
“He’s already signed,” she explains. “But I can’t sign them.”
I clear my throat and look around for an exit out of the train station. “You can. I’ll be here with you on the phone.”
I head upstairs and I try to find a quiet spot to talk to her, aware of the silence on the other end. I drop down onto a bench, encouraging her. “I’m here, Mom. I will never leave you,” I promise.
A silent beat. And then, “I signed. It’s over.”
The words “it’s over” resound in me like a final bell. I burst out crying. She’s crying too.
“Don’t cry, Sara.”
“I’m crying for you. And for this total… disappointment I feel.”
“Listen to me, Sara,” my mom says, raising her voice. “Never, ever stop believing in love, despite this. Never stop believing in it.”
After I hang up the phone, I take a minute to try to collect myself before returning to the train station. By the time I board, I’ve cried oceans.
When I arrive in Nolita, I find Bryn isn’t home. I sit in our living room for a moment, staring at my hands.
“Fuck it.” I grab my purse and my MetroCard and head back out. To the Upper East Side.
I don’t know why I crave to see him when he might be exactly what brings me to the same position my mother is in. Heartbroken. But there’s something about this man that pulls me on a primitive level. To his strength, his confidence. I need it right now. Bad.
And I could use the distraction.
I wipe at my eyes and fix my face as much as possible on the train ride so I am ready when I knock on his door. When he doesn’t answer immediately, I knock over and over until I hear an exasperated yell, “Coming!”
He yanks open the door with a moody frown, but when he spots me, his eyes widen and his eyebrows rise. He’s wearing nothing but silk pajama pants and has what seems to be a script in his hands.